Stumped
by mightwriteeventually
Summary: A short story about Finn and Huntress Wizard set between "Seventeen" and the finale.


What time is it? Finn didn't know. He could tell it was definitely daytime, and the sun had certainly been up for a while now. Ooo's summer heat demanded that he get out of his sleeping bag and now the 17 year old was simply laying on his bed. He hummed to himself a little bit. The humming turned to whistling. His fingers started to mime what he thought they notes would be on his flute. He reached beside his bed to where the instrument should be laying, and saw it was across the room, on the dresser. No doubt placed there by Jake to prevent the battered woodwind from getting even more damage.

"This is not accommodating to my laziness!" He shouted to himself, alerting his adoptive brother from downstairs of their treehouse.

"Why are you yelling, dude?" Jake stretched his head up into their bedroom, "Nightmares? even though it's…4pm," his elastic skin formed a watch.

"4PM?! What happened to today?" Finn shot upright, " I was gonna hangout in the Candy Kingdom with Pbubs and Marci, then I was gonna go dragon watching by Fartwind Bay, then I was gonna pound those old energy drinks we found with you so we could play video games all night! This sucks." Finn

"For one thing, we're not touching those. They'd probably kill us. Also; what sucks?"

"I dunno exactly what it is, man. Ever since my birthday I've been, not me. I'm not depressed, just sorta blah."

"Sounds kinda like depression dude."

"Nah. It's not sad that's keeping me in bed. I want to get up but I just kinda can't."

"Is this girl issues? You have to tell me. Last time you didn't tell me, you had Huntress Wizard up and leave you for her…ex? I still don't understand their dynamic."

Finn smiled a little at the mention of Huntress Wizard.

"Wait," Jake caught on, "you miss Huntress Wizard!"

"I mean, yeah I do."

"Yes, you do," Jake replied defensively, then realized Finn had already admitted his feelings, "Oh. Well, what're you gonna do about it?"

"I dunno man. Just lay here until someone asks me to do something, go somewhere, save people in danger or something." Finn replied, his voice sinking with the weight of his boredom.

"Why don't you ask HW out on a date or something? Maybe take a stroll in Candy Kingdom or see a movie or whatever. She likes you, man!"

Finn considered it, but he thought about it for a little too long and managed to talk himself out of talking to his crush. "No. I don't think she'd be into that. She likes trees and eating rodents and stuff."

"Well anything's better than being a mopey butt. Come on!"

And with those words Jake grabbed Finn with his stretchy paws and hurled him out of the open window.

"You needed this!" The dog called from inside.

Finn huffed, but immediately felt better now that he was at least a little farther from the pity party he had been hosting. He decided to start his journey at the Candy Kingdom, but noticed something was wrong. The landscape didn't look right. The grass was the same color, the lake was still there; nothing was missing. But still not right. Almost like, something had been added since last he left the house. Finn's gaze then fixated on a stump in the middle of the field. Weird. He didn't remember there ever even being a tree there. He stared at it and felt calm, like he could have his mind cleared for the first time in a while. It was flat on top and warm to the touch. He sat on the stump and tried to use it to think about his lady situation for a while.

*POOF* The stump had disappeared from under Finn's butt he found himself laying on a tall, green woman with wooden antlers.

"Huntress Wizard! What are you doing here…as a stump."

She paused for a beat before responding to him. The short pause was just long enough for Finn to realize he was still laying on her. He quickly scrambled off Huntress Wizard and helped pull her off the ground.

"Hello Finn," she didn't stammer, but couldn't completely hide her embarassment. She quickly gained some composure and continued on, "I found this place relaxing and chose to meditate here."

"And you turned into a stump?"

"I was relaxed. It happens. And it made me camouflaged from predators. I'm sure a few bears hate me since I control their population." She stared at the forest with slitted eyes.

"I feel that, but, why are you so close to my house? I trust you not to get too deep in on my biz or anything, but you had to know I live here. And if you wanna hang out…." Finn trailed off and hoped she'd finish his sentence, or at the very least give him and explanation.

Huntress Wizard started to open up and be honest with him, and reached for his hand, but pulled back when that nagging feeling of losing her drive in this world for a boy she didn't know as well as she'd like to.

All this happened in less than two seconds, leaving Finn to complete his sentence "….you can always just drop by. I'd love to hear from you more." HW's face was warming quickly. "But I'm glad you're here now." Finn pulled himself into a hug with her, and she returned the gesture. He held for a moment. She smelled nice, earthy for sure, but the leaves of her hair were sweet and surprisingly soft.

When they pulled a way she thought about kissing him again. Why not? It wouldn't be the first, or even second time time they'd kissed and it's not like they were trying to be an official couple at the moment. They can have fun without getting too caught up in each other. But she hesitated from acting again. "You looked like you were heading somewhere before you decided to sit on a random stump you probably felt a bizarre attraction to. Mind if I join you? As long as you don't meet anymore sexy stumps?"

Finn smiled a little. "I was considering hanging out at the Candy Kingdom for the afternoon If you'd like to join me. Bubblegum's still all ants-in-the-pants about Gumbald and could probably use the company. We might dig through the old movies for something good."

Her first thought was to say "no," she had no problem with Princess Bubblegum or any of the other inhabitants of the Candy Kingdom, but she wasn't exactly in the mood to spend her day anywhere other than an open field or the forest. Still, Finn would be there, and as much as she wanted to adhere to her lone wolf lifestyle, she'd been itching for his company.

"Yes, I will accompany you," she felt bold, "because I don't want you to miss me." she walked past him, bumping into him slightly and they made their way across the plains. A few steps into their trek a loud ringing came from Finn's backpack.

"Aw crud," Finn grunted pulling a phone from his pack, "it Finn, who dis?...Hey, Marcy, what's up?...Ice King? Dinner party gone wrong? Forest? Expanding the Ice Kingdom to include a snow park for princesses to come and have wintertime fun all year round? Coming from anyone else that would sound great. Yeah, we'll be there. No, Huntress Wizard and I… No, not like that! well," Finn looked up at Huntress Wizard with red In his cheeks, "maybe. Stop giggling! We're on our way."

Finn put his phone away, "Sorry, change of plans. Ice Kings lost it and-l"

"I heard. I'm standing right here. Let's go." Huntress Wizard cut him off and they began to sprint to the Ice Kingdom. This was definitely more her element. Looking for something, hunting them down, and bagging the prey. "Hop on!" HW told Finn after she saw him begin to tire, and the wizard carried Finn to the edge of the newly snowed in forest, above the trees Ice King floated laughing and firing snow at the ground, only stopping to look at his sloppily scrawled plans for his snow park.

"Schmow! Marceline wasn't kidding about this Ice Park," Finn noted as he looked at the various ice-slides and penguin sculptures the Ice King had crafted.

"Hey guys!" Marceline flew down and greeted her friends, "thanks for coming out. I thought Simon was done with his princess trapping escapades, but, well. Here we are, I guess." She turned to look at the Ice King's gleeful forest destruction. "Well at least he's trying to invite them just to hang out and not actively capturing them. Anything is progress I suppose."

"Should we maybe just leave him to it?" Finn questioned, "I mean, most princesses will stay away from this right? Most of them are pretty smart. Except maybe Hot Dog Princess. And Lumpy Space Princess… maybe we should intervein."

"We are going to intervein," Huntress Wizard interjected. "He's wrecking the life of this forest!" The huntress readied and arrow with her magic to launch straight at Ice King. She was about to fire when she was stopped.

"Whoah there girl!" Marceline cut her off. "I appreciate your devotion to nature's status quo and you and Finn are adorable, but if you think you're hurting my friend you'll be dealing with me, alright, Leaves?" Finn was visually uncomfortable with Marceline commenting on their his and HW's mutual crushes and also was afraid of a possible fight between his friends. Huntress Wizard didn't pay her teasing any mind and brushed off the nick name.

Huntress Wizard figured she could take down the vampire if she wanted to, maybe, wooden stakes aren't too hard to fashion in a pinch, but luckily for Simon and Finn, she liked Marceline well enough to not want to hurt her. But she still needed to think fast, and even faster since Finn was already charging straight at the Ice King, yelling at him to stop. Sigh. She cared a lot for that boy, but he could be unwise. "At least he's cute" she muttered to herself.

"What?" Marceline said, smiling at Huntress Wizard devilishly.

"I mean what I say." Huntress Wizard then took off after Finn. "Finn! Do you know of any obvious weaknesses?"

"His power comes from his crown, if we get that we can stop him."

"Got it!" Huntress Wizard lept onto a snow covered tree, climbed the branches, balanced on top of it, and fired a magic arrow with a vine trailing it into the ground, she then bounced her way to ground, pulling the vine taught like a bow string. "Get on, dude!" she called to Finn, who was catching up. Finn Lept onto the makeshift bow and after some quick aiming, HW fired Finn at the Ice King.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha Princesses! Come to my snow fortress!-What?" Ice King had just enough time to acknowledge the oncoming threat as Finn lept onto him, pulling the crown from his head and slid all the way down an ice slide right to Marceline and Huntress Wizard's feet.

"Thank you both so much!" Marceline hugged the pair of adventurers. "You two make a good couple." She became deathly serious for a moment: Don't waste this." She pointed at their faces and gathered up their prey from the ground, "Come on Simon." Marceline picked up the Ice king and his crown and flew them back to his fortress.

There was a long pause. They had never agreed to being an official couple of Ooo, but also didn't feel right telling Marceline that they weren't actually dating. Huntress Wizard thought how they had just acted as team. Almost wordlessly they faced a challenge together, and were stronger together. This boy would never let her be soft. He wanted her at her best just like she did. Huntress Wizard was the first to break the silence.

"Still totally in love with me?"

Finn looked up at her and gave her a kiss.

"Feel like watching a mindless movie at the treefort?"

"Usually something mindless would be the last thing I want to do. But tonight, yes. I think that's what I need."

They were side by side in Finns bed. Crickets chirped outside. The dumb scifi movie they had dug from Finn's collection had long ended. Jake could barely contain himself that Finn had brought his first girl home, and not without any teasing he agreed to crash downstairs that night while Finn and Huntress Wizard watched their movie from a small TV in Finn and Jake's room. While things were calm outside, the pair of adventurers were feeling a little restless, nervous about making a move.

"HW?"

"Yeah?"

"You'd stop me from anything you wouldn't want me to do right?" Finn asked leaning over her.

She put a hand to his cheek, "you know I could stop anything."

"I know you can," Finn leaned in to kiss the girl in his bed, the very first girl in his bed, and she leaned up to accept it. They held each others body with one arm, and cupped the others cheek with another and savored each others company and the quiet night they had to share.

"Lay on me," Huntress Wizard told Finn after their kiss broke.

"What?"

"I know usually the girl cozies up to the guy and all, but most girls don't have antlers to jab up their partner's nose. So you're gonna be my little spoon tonight." Huntress Wizard pulled the young man next to her.

Finn happily obliged and laid his head down on her chest. A quick kiss on the forehead and nimble fingers in his hair soon followed and he felt a peace he hadn't known in a while creep over him.

"Hey, HW, you said I was your partner…are we a thing now?"

"Everyone seems to want us to be. And I think I do too."

"Me too, Huntress Wizard. Me too."


End file.
